ICT policy

While the benefits of the widespread use and applications of ICTs are many, there are also negative impacts, such as those associated with the growth in the amount of e-waste that call for the need to counter effects on environmental pollution and public health.

All initiatives, researches or innovation projects in the field of ICTs for the region of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) that have made a significant contribution to the use of the Internet for the region’s social, economic and cultural development since 2008 may apply for the 2013 FRIDA Award+.

While hidden cameras can document and flag human rights abuses by authoritarian governments, these same videos can then be used to identify dissidents who are later detained and tortured, explains David Sasaki in his introduction to this year’s Global Information Society Watch, which focuses on transparency and accountability online.

At a recent civil society workshop in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, co-organised by APC with Global Partners, NUPEF Institute and the Fundação Getulio Vargas, groups from the region looked beyond the World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai (WCIT) and outlined the following positive principles for constructive multi-stakeholder dialogue.

Last week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation hosted a Digital Rights Camp in Auckland, new Zealand in a prelude to the TPP negotiations this week. With participants from more than 8 of the countries involved in the TPP negotiations, the meeting was roaring success. Not only that.

Submission to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association by Association for Progressive Communication (APC). The submission has three parts: the conceptualisation of freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association on the internet, country specific cases and recommendations.

On October 9, the Supreme Court of the Philippines will decide on the constitutionality of the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012. This cyberlaw has been contested from day one, after internet activists had pointed to truly problematic provisions incompatible with internet rights.

APC, together with other organisations, submitted a letter directed to Panama’s president, in response to a copyright law approved by the country’s congress that would affect human rights such as access to knowledge, privacy and freedom of expression. The letter asks for the law not to be approved definitely as it is today, and to be revised.